Smart probe for rapid and simultaneous detection and discrimination of hydrogen sulfide, cysteine/homocysteine, and glutathione

Development of a simple probe for simultaneous detection and discrimination of the most important four biothiols (H2S, Cys, Hcy and GSH) is important but a challenging task. In this paper, a very simple but versatile fluorescent probe was reported, which can be used for simultaneous detection and discrimination of H2S, Cys/Hcy and GSH. This probe not only can be easily prepared, but also shows rapid (within 150 s), selective and sensitive responses for these four biothiols with distinct fluorescent turn-on signal changes at 465 nm. Moreover, this probe is able to show unique absorbance enhancement at 540 nm for H2S, and additional fluorescence enhancement at 550 nm only for Cys/Hcy, thus providing a rapid, simultaneous detection and discrimination method for H2S, Cys/Hcy and GSH. Imaging and discrimination of Cys and GSH in HeLa Cells by this probe were also successfully applied.